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Lord Buddha was every inch a Hindu!

Dilli’s Capital

Hindu Nationalism

“It (is) not easy ... to draw a line between Hindu nationalism and true nationalism. The two overlap as India is the only home of Hindus and they form a majority there.” — J. Nehru in Glimpses of World History

Civilizational India!

India Crossed Out!

Those who permit slaying of animals; those who bring animals for slaughter; those who slaughter; those who sell meat; those who purchase meat; those who prepare dishes out of meat; those who serve that meat and those who eat it are all murderers. — Manusmriti

Homos & Hinduism

National Shame!

Word of God?

When I think of all the harm the Bible has done, I despair of ever writing anything to equal it.” — Oscar Wilde

"Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world." — Voltaire

"Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned, [and molested]: yet we have not advanced one inch towards humanity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support error and roguery all over the earth." — Thomas Jefferson

Bully List

“Most educated citizens have known that the prestigious Swiss magazine called the Swiss Illustrierte had announced in 1991 the names, the photographs, the account numbers and the concealed loot in their accounts of 14 international crooks amongst whom the late, then recently killed, Prime Minister of India was one. Did this produce any response in India? I know of none.”- Ram Jethmalani

This piece is being written to help the SIT investigations into black money, and it is my right and duty as the petitioner who has obtained from the Hon’ble Supreme Court the historic judgment of July 2011 to neutralise all efforts, intentional or just the product of ignorance and inefficiency, calculated to make a mockery of the judgment and let dacoits have the last laugh. I normally do not quote other newspapers in my piece, but for the sake of convenience I am borrowing the following facts from a piece which appeared in the Hindustan Times of 29 October with the title: Black money list: Some unanswered Questions about the 627 names.

This unfortunate nation got 627 names, but not a farthing was recovered, nor a single name disclosed to the sovereign of this country “The People”, making a joke of the Republic of India. Hindustan Times reports that 800 names were received. What happened to the missing 173? Perhaps the Finance Ministry knows. I join in asking the same question and some more too. When were these names received by India; what was the correspondence that took place before and after the receipt of the names and what steps were taken to use this information by the UPA government and after May 2014 by the new government? It is the conduct of some of our rulers that fully explains and justifies the people’s passionate demand for disclosure, to enable them to decide which ruler is really a collaborator in crime or not.

Now we leave the French disclosure for the time being and get back to the Government of Germany. Our governments have been aware for long that the German government in February 2008 made a public statement in newspapers circulating throughout the world that it will provide to other countries, details of relevant clients from the DVD obtained by them from an ex-employee of the bank on payment of roughly US $475 million. The DVD contained names of 1,400 clients of the Liechtenstein Bank. The German Finance Ministry spokesman, Thorsten Albig said they will willingly share this information at no cost and condition to any requesting country.

Most educated citizens have known that the prestigious Swiss magazine called the Schweizer Illustrierte had announced in 1991 the names, the photographs, the account numbers and the concealed loot in their accounts of 14 international crooks amongst whom the late, then recently killed, Prime Minister of India was one. Did this produce any response in India? I know of none.

In March 2014, in the midst of the hot election campaign I personally went to Germany and on my return recorded my discussions with the highest in the German ministry and the promise which I received from them about sharing this information with us. This letter was sent to BJP leaders and I am waiting to see what is being done to recover the loot.

An obviously anxious member of the Rajya Sabha, Sh. Shantaram Naik asked on 08.07.2014:

Will the Minister of Finance be pleased to state:

(a) whether Government has made any request regarding black money held by Indian nationals in Swiss bank;

(b) when the request was sent and what was the information sought;

(c) whether it is a fact that Parliament of Swiss Government has passed a law called, ‘The Swiss tax Administrative Assistance Act';

(d) If so, when this Act was passed.

(e) whether the changes to be brought in under the law have to be approved through a referendum; and

(f) the details of response given by the Swiss Government in this regard, so far?”

The answer (a) is in the affirmative, a clear ‘Yes, Sir’.

The answer to (b) is that after 7 October 2011, when the Double Taxation Avoidance Convention came into force, several requests have been made. This obviously refers to the old government now displaced. The Hon’ble member obviously wanted to know whether the new government brought into existence has taken any steps. One would expect a frank answer. The Parliamentary record of the answer contains the following sentence, “After the amendments to the Double Taxation Avoidance Convention (DTAC) with Switzerland came into force on 7th October, 2011, several requests seeking information in respect of Indian Nationals holding bank accounts in Swiss Banks in specific cases have been made. There has been a positive response to some requests, where information has been provided subject to the confidentiality clause in the said DTAC. In other cases, the Swiss Government has not been providing the information requested citing restrictions imposed by their domestic laws…. A letter was accordingly written to Swiss Authorities on 23rd June, 2014 under the provisions of Article 26 of the DTAC between India and Switzerland, requesting them to provide the information in this regard that has been compiled by Switzerland. The Swiss authorities in their reply dated 4th July, 2014 have stated that there is no list of Indian tax residents holding assets in Swiss financial institutions in their own names or through structures.”

The SIT, the nation and the Hon’ble Supreme Court would like to see who invoked the amended DTAA and when they got the specific names from Germany. The new government had not yet come in and all this must be the handiwork of the previous one. The correspondence, if found genuine, will alone show that the DTAA was invoked not by the German but by the Indian government. Article 26, which is mentioned in the reply, does not deal with the right to information but to the information when supplied. It cannot be that any honest government would ask for the information under Article 26, unless it is determined unasked not to disclose it to anyone.

I must now draw attention to the second report of the task force of the BJP on “the steps to be taken by India” in the matter of “Indian Black Money Abroad in Secret Banks and Tax Havens“, running into 95 pages. Particularly to Para XIII, “The Double Taxation Treaty with Switzerland,” which at page 26 describes the Double Taxation Treaty as an impotent instrument. Of course when this report was written in January 2011, the ratification of United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) by India had not taken place, though many other countries had ratified it long before.

Fortunately, before the installation of the Narendra Modi government, India did ratify this when the Manmohan Singh government was still in power. We have only to use this Convention and nothing else. The DTAA was the favourite device of the previous government and our government blindly copied its corrupt actions.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, our President now, had recommended the use of this useless document in his otherwise useless white paper on black money. Unfortunately, people do not know that his white paper was itself called a black paper. I want, what I lovingly consider our government, to take steps to fulfil its pledge to the people of India.

Wait for more information about the conduct of the collaborators of the culprits. – The Sunday Guardian, 9 November 2014

A study of the masterminds behind the Godhra riots

In May this year, the people of India chose their Prime Minister. Over twelve years, several inquiry commissions — the Tewatia Committee (2010), the Nanavati Commission (2008), the Special Investigation Team (2011) under the Supreme Court — cleared Narendra Modi of all charges of having masterminded or, at least, encouraged the Godhra riots.[1]

Still, his detractors — politicians and ideology-driven activists in India, the US and Europe — have continued to label him “merchant of death”, “butcher”, “Nazi”, “fascist”, “murderer”, etc. Let us examine the facts and see whether they can point to the riot’s real mastermind.

The Role of Congress Members

On 27 February 2002, when a coach of Hindu pilgrims returning from Ayodhya went up in flames at Godhra railway station, a Congress member of the Godhra municipality, Haji Balal, led a mob and stopped the fire-fighting vehicle on its way to the station. The fire crew reported that “he had been visiting the fire station at night for the past few days on the pretext of watching films on television.” Haji Balal, a few days earlier, had the clutch plates of one of the main fire-fighting vehicles removed; in the second vehicle, the nut connecting the pipe to the water tank was spirited away.[2]

Haji Balal who, according to locals, proudly proclaimed himself the “Bin Laden of Godhra”, is among eleven people convicted for criminal conspiracy and murder and sentenced to death by a special fast track court in the high-security Sabarmati Central Jail in Ahmedabad on 22 February 2011.[3]

Other Congress members were also “booked for the carnage”.[4] The attack on the pilgrims was carried out “according to what was planned earlier under the directions of [the late] Maulvi Umarji”,[5] a religious leader of the Ghanchi Muslims of Godhra.[6] “All the acts like procuring petrol, circulating false rumour, stopping the train and entering in coach S/6 were in pursuance of the object of the conspiracy,” concluded the Nanavati Report. “The conspiracy hatched by these persons further appears to be a part of a larger conspiracy to create terror and destabilise the Administration.”[7]

“Destabilise the Administration”: Narendra Modi had assumed office as Gujarat Chief Minister on 7 October 2001, four months earlier. Incidentally, Maulvi Umarji got a ticket to campaign for the Congress in December 2002 state election in Gujarat.

In order to quickly gather a crowd of angry Muslims to the Godhra station and attack the train, so that no one would guess who was pouring petrol in the S6 and S7 coaches, rumours that a Ghanchi Muslim girl had been abducted by the Kar Sevaks were spread by the Jamiat-Ulema-E-Hind (JUH), a long-standing ally of the Congress.[8]

From the start of the crisis, Narendra Modi appealed to the people to remain calm and exert self-control. On five occasions between 27 and 28 February, “CM addressed Media, Assembly and General public and everywhere the genesis and intention was one and the same, to punish the culprits responsible for the Godhra incident in an exemplary manner, so that it did not recur ever again.”[9] He announced an ex-gratia payment of 200,000 rupees to the next of kin of those killed in the Godhra incident and ordered a high-level inquiry into the incident.[10]

On 1st March, less than two days after the tragedy and while riots were raging, Modi requested the chief secretaries of neighbouring states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan to send ten companies of armed police from each state to assist the government in “handling law and order situation”. As the sociologist and author Madhu Kishwar points out,[11] all three states then had Congress governments, and all three turned down the request.

The Campaign

Let us recall that the BJP-led NDA alliance had been in power at the Centre since 1998, confirmed by fresh elections in 1999. A 15-million-rupee campaign by journalist-activist Teesta Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand, funded by the Congress Party and Communists to “politically isolate the BJP”,[12] failed to convince the Indian people, who voted the BJP to power. And the crusaders had to swallow the obvious — that the streets of India remained peaceful during the NDA regime.[13]

They however found a fertile ground in the US, especially with the evangelical lobbies.[14] On 1st April 2002 Teesta Setalvad created “Citizens for Justice and Peace” (CJP), an NGO “outsourced by the Congress to the job of attacking Modi”, as Madhu Kishwar put it.[15] The activists approached the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), a U.S. government-funded body, with known roots in the evangelical movement, whose “original intention was to protect Christians around the world … to review facts and circumstances of violations of religious freedom internationally — and to make policy recommendations to the President, Secretary of State, and the Congress”.[16] Testifying before the USCIRF, Teesta Setalvad alleged that the BJP had conducted:

successful pogroms and attacks against the countries religious minorities, … recent state-sponsored Genocide of the Muslim Community in Gujarat … Brutal destruction of life, through rape, quartering of bodies, urinating on them and incarcerating [sic] them so that there is no trace or evidence of their remains … desecrating over 270 religious and cultural shrines belonging to the community … through systematic planning and targeted action by armed militias ideologically driven by the vision of a supreme and exclusive Hindu rashtra (state). … Over 2,000 lost their lives, 500 are missing and 250-300 girls and women were gang-raped before being quartered, burned and killed.[17]

This “testimony” from India is what fed countless self-styled human rights organizations and intellectuals in India and in the West. They drank in Setalvad’s words and regurgitated them as articles and “reports” with a plethora of gory details.

As regards the number of riot victims, invariably quoted in thousands, the then Police Commissioner P.C. Pande, in a statement to the Special Investigating Team, declared,

… it was incorrect to say that 1000 people lost their lives in Ahmedabad City during the riots of 2002, whereas the actual number of deaths between February 28th 2002 and April 30th 2002 was 442, of whom 113 were Hindus and 329 Muslims. … All offences committed were duly and properly registered including by sending police officers to relief camps and therefore, no important crime remained unregistered.[18]

According to the Congress-led UPA government’s statement in Parliament on 11 May 2005, the final figures of those killed in the Godhra riots are 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus.[19] In any case, the endlessly repeated figure of “2000 Muslim victims” has no basis in actual fact.

The SIT and Sanjeev Bhatt

Facts cannot so easily be wished away. And they were nailed by the Nanavati Report and the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT), headed by former Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) chief R.K. Raghavan in response to a petition filed by Jakia Nasim, Ehsan Jafri’s[20] widow, and Teesta Setalvad, which alleged criminal conspiracy by Narendra Modi’s government.[21] Jakia Nasim’s testimony before the Nanavati Commission and Supreme Court in 2002 and 2003 was that “the mob would have lynched all of them but for the
timely action by the police”. Four years later, her praise turned into complaint — except that the poor lady was not even aware of what she complained or petitioned about: “She has no personal knowledge of the allegations mentioned in the affidavits filed by R.B. Sreekumar during the years 2002, 2004 and 2005 on his own”, said the SIT.[22]

Let us explain: The SIT, appointed on 23 March 2008, investigated two retired Indian Police Service (IPS) officers, one of them being R.B. Sreekumar just mentioned, to whom we will shortly return. The second one, Sanjeev Bhatt, then Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence in the Gujarat government, claimed after years of silence that he was present at a law and order meeting convened by the Chief Minister on 27 February night at his residence. At this meeting, which lasted 15-20 minutes, Sanjeev Bhatt claims that the Chief Minister said that “for too long the Gujarat police had been following the approach of balancing the action against Hindus and Muslims … that the situation warranted that the Muslims be taught a lesson, … it was imperative that Hindus be allowed to vent out their anger….”[23]

As it turned out, none of the officials present even remembered the presence of Sanjeev Bhatt. Interrogated independently later, they denied any such talk by the Chief Minister, who, they asserted, said instead that the Godhra flare-up was very unfortunate and should be handled with a firm hand. The discussions centred around maintenance of law and order in view of the call for a bandh on the next day and the availability of forces. Ahmedabad Police Commissioner P.C. Pandey categorically stated that no instructions to allow any freedom to law-breakers were given by the Chief Minister. According to Prakash S. Shah, then Additional Secretary (Law & Order), the Chief Minister instructed all the officers that “communal peace and harmony be maintained at all costs and all possible steps be taken to control the possible communal flare-up.”[24]

As for Sanjeev Bhatt’s testimony, the SIT called fax messages produced by him “not genuine”, “forged document, fabricated subsequently by someone with a vested interest.”[25] “This conduct of Shri Sanjiv [sic] Bhatt in arranging, prompting and controlling the witness [a witness produced by him] to corroborate his statement is highly suspicious and undesirable.”[26] And from the location of his mobile phone, his claim of being present at the said meeting at the Chief Minister’s residence proved to be false. “Shri Sanjiv Bhatt is a tainted witness and therefore, cannot be relied upon keeping in view his background in the police department as he was involved in criminal cases of serious nature and departmental inquiries are also in progress against him.”[27] Cases against him included inflicting torture in custody leading to death, abduction, extortion and unprovoked firing, killings and planting narcotics with a view to blackmail. SIT head R.K. Raghavan concluded that Bhatt had lied and brought in tutored witnesses to falsely implicate Modi.[28] The Gujarat Vigilance Commission recommended his suspension twice (on 15-07-2002 and 19-10-2006) for professional misconduct, but each time he managed to evade prosecution.[29]

A last brush stroke on Sanjeev Bhatt’s erratic comportment is given by senior lawyer Ram Jethmalani in a Sunday Guardian article. The man “handed over charge and his official computer, leaving all his emails in an unprotected mode for all to read”… The state government forwarded the material to the SIT for investigations, and thanks to this irresponsible gesture, authorities harvested details of his “hobnobbing with the Opposition Congress party in a thoroughly illegal and almost seditious manner to concoct evidence against the Chief Minister and the state of Gujarat”. To this end Bhatt was in constant touch with top Congress party leaders, from whom he received not only guidance, but “packages” and “materials”, as per his own statement.[30]

An Activist’s Career

Activist Teesta Setalvad built a successful career on the Godhra issue and on demonizing Narendra Modi, for which she has been covered with national and international awards. Let us mention just a few:

• In 2006, the Nani Palkhivala Award. In her acceptance speech, Setalvad was all praise for an IPS officer to whom she dedicates her award, someone “who stood mighty in the face of a murderous and vindictive Gujarat administration.”[33]

• In 2007, the Padma Shri Award from the Government of India, which since May 2004 had been run by a Congress-led coalition. – Scribd, 2014

Special Investigation Team (SIT) Report, p. 241. The Supreme Court handed over all records pertaining to 2002 riots to SIT on 20.01.2010; SIT submitted its final report on Modi’s role in 2002 Gujarat riots, on 25.04.2011.

Wikipedia, Communalism Combat: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communalism_Combat . “In a 1999 interview, Javed Anand said that before the 1999 Lok Sabha elections, his monthly magazine Communalism Combat (published by Sabrang Communications since August 1993) requested and received funds from the Congress Party, Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Communist Party of India and ten individuals to run advertisements attacking the Sangh Parivar and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)”.

He was a member of the task force created by Bharatiya Janata Party leader L. K. Advani just before the 2009 election. The BJP had promised then and before the 2014 election that it would bring back the black money stashed away in various banks outside India if it were voted to power.

When the Narendra Modi government informed the Supreme Court that it could not disclose certain details about black money because of the double taxation avoidance agreement India had with certain countries, it angered lawyer Ram Jethmalani, on whose plea the Supreme Court had constituted a Special Investigating Team on black money. Jethmalani accused the Modi government of toeing the United Progressive Alliance line.

In this exclusive interview Gurumurthy explains his expectations of the Modi government on the black money issue. – Shobha Warrier

• In 2009 when we met before the parliamentary elections, you had just submitted the task force report on black money to Mr Advani. Did you continue with your investigation even after the BJP lost the elections?

• Let me first talk about the initial hurdles in pursuing black money. There was an opinion among many leaders that there was no black money at all. [Former Union minister] Jairam Ramesh openly said it was complete nonsense. First the Congress said there was no black money, then they said there was no black money of this kind. Such opinion was shared even among some in the National Democratic Alliance.

• Leaders from the BJP too?

• Yes, there were some BJP leaders. They genuinely felt there was no black money. That is also because some of them could not understand that black money was not kept as currency. So the initial difficulty that had to be crossed after submitting the task force report, was making people agree that there was black money. When Advani started talking about it strongly during the elections, it became a public issue. Unless something becomes a public issue, it will never be an issue at all. Because of the elections, it got enough publicity.

When it became an issue, even [Congress President] Sonia Gandhi had to come out with a statement that they would bring black money from abroad. Then [then prime minister] Manmohan Singh had to repeat it.

Thus, it became an issue common to the political system. Till then, it was resisted. This was the biggest public hurdle that had to be overcome.

Today, no political party can say that black money is not an issue; it has become a national issue. Who drives it, who is more sincere, who has more commitment, is a different issue.

• Was it not a global issue by then?

• At the 2010 G-20 meeting, France and Germany took it up and said that casino capitalism was the product of the Anglo-Saxon economic model. It was the first time in the history of the world that a virtually racial term was used to describe economic behaviour.

They said this model fostered tax havens as respected, accepted and legitimate. France and Germany said, unless you take on the tax havens and the secret banking system, they would walk out of G-20. So America had to cave in.

Unless you understand the functioning of the global financial system and the role of secret money in it, you will never be able to understand the forces that prevent the campaign and exposure of black money.

The global GDP is about $72 trillion and the high net worth individuals’ wealth is $54 trillion out of which $20 trillion is called offshore money. Offshore money is nothing but secret money.

We must understand that this does not mean cash alone; it is in the form of shares, real estate, bonds, yacht, ships, companies, gold, platinum. So this $20 trillion also is in the form of government bonds especially in America.

Much of this $20 trillion black money is from Asia and Africa. This is what drives the American stock market. And 55 per cent of American families are hooked to the stock market and nearly 60 per cent of retirement benefits and pension funds are invested in the stock market. It was less than 10 per cent in 1980 and gradually all the monies shifted from the bank to the stock market.

This connection of black money with the American stock market was what France and Germany resisted. They wanted the secrecy to be broken open.

That was how what we have been trying to do got global recognition. The black money issue can ever be tackled at home. After 2010, the world began to view it as a menace, but only as tax evaded money. But it is not only tax evaded money but it is money taken out of the country.

So the difference between black money in India and the black money out of India is, in India, it is tax evaded money and Indian money outside India is not only tax evaded money, but money which has been taken out of India’s capital resources needed for India.

So it is not only tax evasion, but treason too.

• Do you think all political parties are involved in this, and that is why they do not want to pursue this with enthusiasm?

• Not only politicians, but bureaucrats, businessmen, some even in the judiciary are also corrupt. Then there is also drug money, gold smuggling etc. Politicians, who have been in power for too long, can be involved.

Most politicians are locally corrupt and they keep the money here itself. There was a politician in Jharkhand who said, when questioned about corruption, “Did I put the money in a Swiss bank? I only invested here.” He implicitly claimed to be a nationalist in corruption.

The Global Financial Integrity organisation came out with a calculation that between 1948 and 2008, $500 billion [about 30 lakh crore] has gone out of India. And between 2003 and 2011, $350 billion [about 21 lakh crore] has gone out of India. Most of it had gone out of India after India liberalised the economy.

• Are you connecting black money with liberalisation?

• I am not saying the economy should not be liberalised. But there is a connection. It allows people to have more opportunities to spirit away money. There is no safeguard.

What I want to say is, it is now certain that funds have gone out of India and what has gone out of India is not a very small amount, but very large.

Also, it is not a one nation’s problem, but a global issue. It means we can form global partnership and pursue this money.

• Is it possible for countries to take black money back?

• By legal action, money siphoned off by Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines has been recovered. African dictators’ money has been recovered. It is possible to recover. But I don’t think our income tax department and Enforcement Directorate can do it because it consists of people who have colluded with these things.

The only possibility is that our intelligence agencies must be used for this purpose.

First, you must get clues, vital leads, names of the account holders and bank names. Only then you can start legal action.

• When you were with the task force, could you get all these details, like the names of people and banks?

• We could get information, but only in respect of businessmen and not those of corrupt politicians.

In my view, this government must act and it has the opportunity to act. They have got to put together a set of very committed people with passion who will go about with this task.

At present, he has too many things to handle and I am sure he must be thinking about how to handle this. The matter is also with the Supreme Court.

• The Supreme Court had constituted a SIT on black money on Ram Jethmalani’s plea. He accuses the Modi government of protecting the culprits. He said the Modi government is following the UPA path when it refused to divulge the names to the Supreme Court citing the treaty….

• There are two sets of names. In Liechtenstein Bank accounts, the German government announced that anybody could take the information, but the Government of India asked them to give it under the direct taxation avoidance agreement under which it is a secret. That’s why the Supreme Court asked why did they obtain it under a secret clause what is available in the open?

But the most important thing is the HSBC account particulars which we got from France. France got it from records stolen by a disgruntled employee in the HSBC bank in Switzerland. But the bank is in the Swiss jurisdiction. We got reportedly about 600 Indian names from France under the double taxation avoidance agreement.

The government view is that under terms of the bilateral the details can be disclosed it only after prosecution is launched. This is the claim of the government saying this is the international practice.

The other view is, with which I agree, is that in public court proceedings, the government can disclose the names. The government seems to say that the Supreme Court cannot over-rule the DTAA. But my view is no over-ruling is needed because the DTAA itself says that it can be disclosed in public court proceedings.

My view is when the court says the government has to disclose, it must disclose.

Yes, there are two views in this. Obviously, the bureaucrats will take a view which is very defensive and conservative. The more serious thing is they have filed an application saying the original order the Supreme Court had passed must be modified.

The original judgement says the government should not enter into any agreement with any country which says the information must be kept confidential and it is prohibiting the government from entering into inter-government agreement with the US for automatic and mutual sharing of financial information which is due in December

According to me, the government is wrong in filing this application because the DTAA with America specifically says you can disclose this information in public court proceedings. In my view, signing the inter-governmental agreement with America will not violate the Supreme Court judgment.

• The perception among people is that the Modi government is not very enthusiastic about the black money issue and going slow like the UPA….

• I won’t take that view. Action to recover black money abroad will be in any way a slow process. It needs the world’s cooperation. The government has to create an atmosphere in which the world sees that the Indian government is keen on fast action.

Till the UPA was in power, the world had had a feeling that India was not keen to recover black money. This has to be reversed.

The first thing the government can do today is to expeditiously file prosecutions against people who have concealed the money in HSBC and disclose their names.

Recovering black money is a very strategic issue as the Indian government has to make alliances with many countries for which we took no efforts at all so far. This government can take these efforts because it has high level of influence with most of the countries. The credibility of this government is high.

• Do you have confidence in this government that it would pursue the issue honestly?

• A hundred percent. This is going to be a very important agenda for Modi. He has made his intention clear to me many times before and after coming to power.

• Modi may want to pursue it, but what about the others?

• There is no one in the government who can think otherwise if the most powerful person, the PM, wants action to recover black money.

In my view, Modi is the person who will do it. Others will fall in line, even if they genuinely doubt whether there is so much money.

• Finance Minister Arun Jaitley hinted that the name of a certain UPA minister is there. Is the issue only about UPA ministers and the Congress party? Is it not much bigger and deeper than that?

• He was talking about the 600 names in the HSBC list; he was not talking about the entire gamut of black money. He was actually answering the Congress which was taunting the NDA government for not acting on black money.

It was a political statement and that was needed because the Congress was trying to take advantage of the secrecy. That is why Jaitley said, be careful, you are likely to be embarrassed.

• Do you think the Modi government will pursue the matter as seriously if there are names of politicians from the BJP?

• As yet, there is not even a suspicion of anybody from the BJP in it. So this is a hypothetical question. Even if somebody from the NDA is involved, public opinion and judicial opinion will force the disclosure.

The media must pursue it relentlessly. The problem is that some powerful sections of the media in India are also corrupt. If public opinion is generated, it will have its effect.

I am confident that the government will pursue the matter seriously. If not, people like us will not keep quiet. It is not to see the issue goes unattended that I have spent 30 years of my life on this. There are many people like me within and outside the system.

• Have you got any startling revelations while pursuing the issue?

• There are many leads, but to give startling revelations, you need facts.

Without facts, you will be making allegations. I do not make allegations without facts. We can only go to a certain extent and after that, we have no powers to probe them. – Rediff, 27 October 2014

Legalism and Government Stand in Black Money Case – S. Gurumurthy – The New Indian Express – 30 October 2014

“The government has concealed nothing from the SIT or the court. But the court rapped the government despite the government’s affidavit day before saying it has given all the names months ago. Neither the court nor the media is going to take back the strong comments. The damage is done. But morally, the Modi Government has won.” – S. Gurumurthy

The way the Supreme Court slammed the government on October 28 for not disclosing the names of black money holders given by the French government is like the classic case of both eating 100 onions and taking 100 lashes when the option was given to a person to do either of the two.

The short story of this paradox is this. The Supreme Court, moved by a public interest petition filed by Ram Jethmalani in 2009, delivered its judgment in July 2011, directing the government to appoint a Special Investigation Team (SIT). It was to be headed by two former Judges of the Supreme Court and consisted of the enforcement and intelligence agencies to probe the issue and recovery of huge black money suspected to be stashed away by Indians abroad.

The estimate of the rogue money, according to Global Financial Integrity (GFI), was $500 billion till 2008 and still counting. The UPA government, which had received information from Germany about black money account holders in Liechtenstein Bank and from France about such account holders in HSBC Bank in Geneva, was dodging the court’s insistence to disclose the details. It was taking refuge in some provisions of the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) under which it said it had received the information. This forced the court to direct and get the government to disclose the Liechtenstein Bank details to the SIT. But before the court could direct the government to give details of HSBC account holders, the government filed a review petition asking the court to take back the judgment. After that the matter went into hibernation till it came back alive when the new government took over. The very first act of Modi Government was to appoint the SIT – which the UPA was stalling – to which all investigations of black money stood transferred under the court’s orders. When everything seemed to be going well, the Finance Ministry filed an application on October 15, asking the court to vary its judgment of July 2011 since the government was advised that the direction of the court to disclose names overriding the DTAA was impeding the government’s efforts to secure an Inter Governmental Agreement (IGA) with the US for exchange of banking information. The IGA had the same provisions regarding disclosure as the DTAA with the US and most other nations.

The government said that since court orders seemed to prevent the government from signing the IGA with restrictions on disclosure, the judgment needed to be recast. Many, particularly Ram Jethmalani and others, who had worked on the black money issue for years, saw in this effort the same stonewalling which the UPA Government was doing to block the black money probe. The government’s October application lacked a sense of timing and ran contrary to the sentiments of its supporters on black money recovery agenda. Hell broke loose. Critics and friends alike began drawing parallels between the UPA and the NDA regimes, and sceptics began to feel that one was not different from the other. The ill-conceived and ill-timed application made everyone feel that this government too wanted to protect the black money holders.

But the facts were the other way round, as the clarification affidavit filed by the Finance Ministry on October 27 revealed. The affidavit unfolded how the government had not only been transparent with the SIT appointed by the court but also had been following its directions. The affidavit asserted that a complete list of cases where information had been obtained from the German and French governments, with the status of the action taken by the government was submitted by the Central Board of Direct Taxes on June 27. It added that the CBDT officials also met and briefed the SIT on the status of the cases, background of the information received, non-sharing of information by Swiss authorities, and constraints faced by the government and alternative methods of securing account details.

Shockingly, his disclosure of how transparent the government had been and how it had parted with the details to the SIT was not mentioned when the Finance Minister briefed the media two days later on October 17, when already its critics and some friends had begun saying that the present government was no different from the UPA.

The Finance Minister’s briefing took the position that the DTAA prohibited the disclosure of information received under its provisions till the prosecution proceedings were started. This was precisely the argument of the UPA, which the Supreme Court in its judgment of July 2009 had overruled. This coupled with not mentioning that the government had already parted with the details to the SIT proved to be a disaster. In the huge negative publicity, the further affidavit of the government, which claimed that the list of names had been given to the SIT was not noticed at all.

In this situation came the application filed by the government asking for modification of the July 2011 judgment. The Attorney General did not sense the mood of the court and the nation, of course, and set out on legalism to justify the application, which the AG himself had personally approved. The fact that the government had already given the details was lost in the din. The court ordered the government to give the details in a sealed envelope to the court on October 29.

Did the AG tell the court that the details are already with the SIT? Even if he had, it was lost in the legalistic arguments on how justified the application for modification was. The result was bad imaging of the government in the court and in the public domain. Result, the government, which had already disclosed the details to the SIT, got a drubbing for not disclosing it – precisely like eating 100 onions and taking 100 lashes instead of either.

But even the AG’s legalism seems to be wrong. The hard fact is that the DTAA with France does not prohibit disclosure of information on the account holders in HSBC received from France in public court proceedings. The DTAA with France disciplines the disclosure of information received by India under it thus: One, the information shall have the same confidentiality as under India’s domestic law, that is the Income Tax Act and the Right To Information Act read together.

Two, if originally the information was secret in the hands of France (the sender) it shall be kept secret by India (the receiver). Apply the two norms now. First, the Income Tax and the RTI law permit disclosure and so no secrecy attaches to the HSBC details under the Indian law.

Next, the French got stolen information about bank account holders in HSBC in Switzerland. It is therefore not a secret in sender France’s hands. It is secret only in Switzerland. So under both the norms disclosure of HSBC information cannot be denied. And there is an overriding third norm.

The DTAA with France permits disclosure in public court proceedings in addition to disclosure in tax proceedings. It means when a court – the highest court in this case – directs the disclosure the government is empowered to disclose under the DTAA. Move further. The DTAA with the US is on identical terms as with France and the proposed IGA with the US is identical to the DTAA with the US on the disclosure of information. Consequently, the application of the government to the Supreme Court that the judgment prohibits disclosure of information is clearly misconceived, if not unnecessary. It is all confusion compounded at every stage.

How then should the government move forward now? The government should consult the SIT appointed by the Supreme Court whenever it has any doubt on how to go forward. It is the SIT that should ask the court for directions. The Supreme Court has already made it clear: the SIT will handle the investigation on black money. Will the government heed?

Post Script: After all the strong words from the Supreme Court, which ordered the government forthwith to give to it the list of black money holders and critics saying that this government is no different from its predecessor, the SIT chief quietly confirmed last evening(on Tuesday) that the list handed to the court yesterday morning(on Tuesday) was the same as the list given to the SIT by the government four months ago, on June 27, 2014! Means what? The government has concealed nothing from the SIT or the court. But the court rapped the government despite the government’s affidavit day before saying it has given all the names months ago. Neither the court nor the media is going to take back the strong comments. The damage is done. But morally, the Modi Government has won. – The New Indian Express, 30 October 2014

“It is a burst of fresh air that the Supreme Court has warned the authorities against reflexively sending to jail those accused of crimes against women, such as dowry harassment. Because of the North Korea-style laws that have been passed by the NAC-certified “liberal” Manmohan Singh regime, almost the first action taken by the police is to lock up the presumed offenders, who frequently remain in jail for extended periods of time, while their innocence gets argued in court after court. The liberty of a citizen is a right which ought to be taken away only in rare circumstances, rather than routinely. Indeed, such is the case in any genuine post-colonial society.” – Prof Madhav Nalapat

The psychic benefits of having a life partner are so varied and immense that it would be churlish to seek to get financially compensated for the privilege. The taking of dowry as a condition for marriage is a vile act, but clearly one which does not lend itself to extinction merely by the passing of legislation. Lawyers are known to bequeath lucrative cases to their offspring, after decades of having shepherded the same through the labyrinth of courts which together constitute India’s legal system. The drain on time, effort and money is relentless, and very often destroys a life.

Sadly, although in a technical sense the people of India became free on 15 August 1947, in reality, practically the entirety of the legal shackles used by Britain to ensure the servitude of the population of India has been retained. Indeed, since 2004, the two legal eagles of the UPA, Palaniappan Chidambaram and Kapil Sibal have got passed (with the sometimes tacit, often overt, acquiescence, it needs to be said, of the principal opposition party) a shipload of laws which collectively transfer huge chunks of additional authority to the state, thereby denuding the citizen of what little increments there were in his rights during the attempts at liberalisation by P.V. Narasimha Rao and Atal Behari Vajpayee.

As the jurist Aryama Sundaram said on NewsX, jail has become the rule and bail the exception. Circa UPA, the courts in several instances and the police almost invariably (except, of course, where high dignitaries are involved) consider it a bagatelle to deprive a citizen of the Republic of India of his or her liberty. The prisons of India are full of individuals who have been tossed in through dodgy evidence, which eventually may be shown to be so in a higher court. That is, if the concerned convict has the money needed to make appeal after appeal to the higher judiciary, and to afford lawyers capable of collating and exhibiting evidence ignored earlier while passing a verdict of “guilty”.

The UPA specialised in asking for more and more legislation, each framed in such a way as to give near-unlimited discretion to the arresting officer. In today’s India, a citizen can get arrested (on the basis of mere accusations) for a plethora of charges, most of which would be non-cognizable in a more fully-fleshed democracy. Once imprisoned, the effort of the authorities is to ensure that skills and knowledge get erased, for example by the denial of internet. The entire process is calculated to de-humanize the convict, so that at the end of his or her term, all that the released prisoner would be capable of would be to push around a vegetable cart. After the Emergency, and the consequent jailing of dozens of political leaders, a few efforts were made to improve prison conditions, but this impetus for reform petered out quickly. Interestingly, despite spending many years in jail, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru declined to ensure an overhaul of the prison system, which in its essentials continues much the way it was in the 1930s. Indeed, recent pronouncements are reported to have averred even that “Life Imprisonment” should mean precisely that, incarceration for the entire remaining period of a human life. What the effect of such a hope-devoid destiny would be on an individual is not difficult to imagine. Clearly, punishment rather than reform remains the objective of India’s penal system.

In such a dismal context, it is a burst of fresh air that the Supreme Court has warned the authorities against reflexively sending to jail those accused of crimes against women, such as dowry harassment. Because of the North Korea-style laws that have been passed by the NAC-certified “liberal” Manmohan Singh regime, almost the first action taken by the police is to lock up the presumed offenders, who frequently remain in jail for extended periods of time, while their innocence gets argued in court after court. The liberty of a citizen is a right which ought to be taken away only in rare circumstances, rather than routinely. Indeed, such is the case in any genuine post-colonial society.

Although its verdicts in matters such as homosexuality have dismayed those wishing to ensure for citizens of this country the same freedoms enjoyed by their counterparts in other countries where tens of millions speak the English language, such as the UK or Australia, in this matter the Supreme Court has come on the side of individual freedom, correctly decreeing that it ought not to be extinguished without clear and good cause. Hopefully, the Supreme Court will follow this verdict with others which enshrine the principles and values of the 21st century post-colonial society that India needs to be. To succeed in the global Knowledge Economy, what is needed is an atmosphere of freedom rather than the restrictive system left behind by the British and preserved rather than eliminated. Jail ought to become the exception rather than the first and often only recourse of the minions of the law. – The Sunday Guardian, 6 July 2014

» Prof. Madhav Das Nalapat, holds the UNESCO Peace Chair and is Director of the Department of Geopolitics at Manipal University, India. A former Coordinating Editor of the Times of India, he writes extensively on security, policy and international affairs. Prof. Nalapat has no formal role in government, although he is said to influence policy at the highest levels. He is currently the Editorial Director of The Sunday Guardian and tweets at @MDNapalat.

“I had been shocked earlier when the CJI, R. M. Lodha, castigated the Government headed by you, in the matter of not recommending the name of a tainted advocate for appointment as a judge of the apex court. To say the least, it was unbecoming conduct on the part of the CJI. In fact, specifically about R. M. Lodha, people like me are shocked how such people, without apparently even the basic knowledge of law, forget the bigger issue of justice, have been appointed as judges in our courts!” – Major (Retd) P. M. Ravindran

Dear Mr Prime Minister,

There goes Mr Lodha, CJI, again! And now he is exposing his ignorance and incompetence by simply blaming you for not providing adequate infrastructure and number of judges which are apparently the only reasons, according to him, why the judiciary is drawing flake from the public for the preposterous delays and all around failure in delivering justice!

I had been shocked earlier when he castigated the Government headed by you, in the matter of not recommending the name of a tainted advocate for appointment as a judge of the apex court. To say the least, it was unbecoming conduct on the part of the CJI. In fact, specifically about R. M. Lodha, people like me are shocked how such people, without apparently even the basic knowledge of law, forget the bigger issue of justice, have been appointed as judges in our courts! It was a bench, of which he was a member, that put a big question mark on the competence of our apex court judges by not delivering justice even in the matter of a simple case like that of the date of birth. This bench of judges even forgot that the petitioner being a Chief of Army Staff the whole nation was looking out for the final verdict!

Of course you will be getting the best possible legal advice available in the country but ordinary folks like me who are adequately literate are also competent to read and understand the provisions of the Constitution. Art 124(2) of the Constitution is reproduced below:

(2) Every Judge of the Supreme Court shall be appointed by the President by warrant under his hand and seal after consultation with such of the Judges of the Supreme Court and of the High Courts in the States as the President may deem necessary for the purpose and shall hold office until he attains the age of sixty-five years:

Provided that in the case of appointment of a Judge other than the Chief Justice, the Chief Justice of India shall always be consulted.

Now where does the Collegium come in? It has even been made out in the media that had the ‘Government’ returned the recommendation to the Collegium and the Collegium stuck by its earlier recommendation the ‘Government’ had no choice but to accept it! It is true that the appointing authority of the Executive had at some point of time been usurped by the apex court. It is time that the Parliament restored it to the rightful authority.

Strongly disapproving the all-judge composition of the National Judicial Commission, a Parliamentary Standing Committee of the Ministry of Law and Justice, headed by Rajya Sabha member E.M.S Natchiappan, had said ‘Judges appointing judges is bad enough in itself; judges judging judges is worse.’

And that brings us to the efficacy and accountability of the judiciary.

That our judiciary is an outright failure is evident when we consider the fact that justice delayed is justice denied. And when you look at the final judgements and see that justice is not delivered even after the preposterous delays the very need to sustain such an establishment becomes questionable. Here are two relevant quotes:

Justice is an intrinsic human need. We suffer much privation but we cannot suffer being wronged. Absence of justice, we must not forget, is one of the causes of crime.

When we transformed from subjects to citizens, we forfeited our rights it seems, since what happens in our country now in the name of law is often rank injustice.

‘Human rights, the genesis of justice is from religion’ under ‘faith line’ by Renuka Narayanan, The New Indian Express of 20 Dec 2004.

And if you want it from better authorities here is what the National Commission to Review the working of the Constitution has stated in its report, submitted to the then government in 2002:

‘Judicial system has not been able to meet even the modest expectations of the society. Its delays and costs are frustrating, its processes slow and uncertain. People are pushed to seek recourse to extra-legal methods for relief. Trial system both on the civil and criminal side has utterly broken down.’ Also, ‘Thus we have arrived at a situation in the judicial administration where courts are deemed to exist for judges and lawyers and not for the public seeking justice’

Why I said better authority is because the 11 member Commission, was headed by a former Chief Justice of India, M.N. Venkatachaliah, and of the remaining ten 3 (B.P. Jeevan Reddy, R.S. Sarkaria and Kottapalli Punnayya) were judges of the Supreme Court/High Courts and 2 (Soli J. Sorabjee and K. Parasaran) were lawyers! Only 2 (P.A.Sangma and Sumitra G. Kulkarni) were political nominees and 2 (Dr. Subhash C. Kashyap and Dr. Abid Hussain) were bureaucrats. Just one (C.R. Irani) represented the masses from the media!

Even Prashant Bhushan who has alleged that eight of the earlier 16 Chief Justices of India were corrupt holds Mr Venkatachaliah in high esteem. After indicting the very system which he himself had headed one might tend to agree with Prashant Bhushan. But the fact again lies elsewhere. In his notes to the Report, Dr. Subhash C. Kashyap has mentioned the following: ‘The Chapter 7 of the Report is titled ‘The Judiciary’. This chapter particularly is seriously flawed and distorted. The much-needed Judicial Reform issues have not been even touched or these got deleted in the final draft.’

Finally, it was left to Ms Kulkarni to drive-in the last nails, thus:

I believe in a Unified and truly Secular India. However, the Commission debates seemed often to reduce the Constitution to being a platform for divisiveness and not unification.

The Commission did not initiate or promote sincere debate in the public with regards to the issues that it was contemplating. The effort was more to “evade and defer” instead of to “identify issues, table them for debate and to deal with them”.

Why I have quoted these is because my observation tells me that this Report is very much like a court order: high moral standing through eloquent quotes, reasonably correct recording of facts, shaky deductions and outrageously wrong decisions!

I am among those who are convinced that this nation cannot develop peacefully unless the judiciary is overhauled lock, stock and barrel.

The judiciary has been complaining about lack of adequate infrastructure and shortage of judges for the high pendency and delays. While it looks true on the face of it the fact is otherwise. To begin at the lower court, most of the time of the court is wasted in a process called mustering where hundreds of cases listed for the day are called out, the presence of the parties ascertained and the cases are adjourned. 30 to 50 percent of the time is wasted in this. It is not the judge‘s or advocate’s time that is wasted. While one is paid by the tax payer, the other is paid by the litigant! Now this is what HD Shourie wrote in ‘How long before justice comes?’ (The New Indian Express of 04 Dec 2004) : ‘It is not possible for a judge to seriously hear and decide more than two or three cases a day….no judge should have more than 30 matters listed before him/her on a given day.’ And, ‘Lawyers are accused of employing delaying methods, but no lawyer can succeed if the court refuses an adjournment.’

Regarding the judge to population ratio, another distorted logic not applicable in the Indian context (for reasons that shall be clarified), Senior Advocate K.T.S. Tulsi has reportedly revealed the following statistics:

Cases filed in one year (1999):

India : 13.6 Million (1,36,68,073); USA: 93.81 Million.

Docket’s per Judge: India : 987; USA: 3235.

Now considering that the population of India 4 to 5 times that of the US of A and the cases filed there is seven times that filed in India, how does the judge to population ratio apply here? If the CJI is not aware of these hard facts, again it can only be considered gross incompetence on his part!

Why judiciary alone? Even the quasi-judicial organisations – the consumer ‘courts‘, ombudsmen, commissions like the information commissions – have taken the wrong example of the judiciary and are harassing the day lights out of justice seekers! Here are some statistics of a complaint decided by the Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Palakkad, Kerala:

In OP 282/1999 (OP No 85/1995 transferred from Malappuram), the opposite party had produced interim stay order on 28/10/1999 and the stay was vacated only on 8/6/2005 but through out this period the case was listed 58 times and adjourned! It was finally posted for orders on 6/7/2007 but was opened for re-hearing suo moto on 15/2/2008 and went on an adjournment spree from 3/3/2008 to 31/5/2010. During this spree it was adjourned 17 times, including 5 times for want of members/President and 10 times for orders only! It was dismissed when an application was submitted under the RTI Act to find out the status!

This and other complaints against the Forum and State Commission, to the Minister for Consumer Affairs and the Chief Minister of Kerala have not produced any desired changes. Copy of the complaint submitted to the CM during his Public Contact Program is available here and the response of the President, Consumer Forum is here .

The judiciary should be reorganised like the medical profession – private practitioners/small clinics/primary health centers, referral centres, tertiary care, super speciality centres. These could be comparable with arbitrators, lower courts, high courts and apex court.

No lawyers in courts. It will ensure that the playing field is level at least to some extent. This is what eminent jurist Fali S. Nariman wrote in his book ‘India’s Legal system: Can it be saved?': For more years than I can imagine we lawyers have been using our lawyering skills not in a profession but in a game, in which the more skilful (which tends to become also the more costly), will invariably win.

Like general and specialist doctors practising independently, all the lawyers should be classified based on their qualifications and specialisation and their fees regulated through a regulator headed by a human rights activist, supported by a legal advisor and a finance advisor. A data base of such legal practitioners should be maintained by the regulator and the regulator should be able to update the status of the legal practitioner based on litigant feedback.

Aggrieved parties should approach a proper arbitrator who should be empowered to summon respondent(s) and advise them on a solution. At the end of the day, whether the problem is solved or not, both the parties should send a feedback, including a grading on a 10 point scale, to the regulator.

If any of the parties are not happy then they can appeal to a lower court. The decision of the lower court should be final. If both the parties are unhappy and file appeals with different courts a designated court should be empowered to transfer both the cases to a third court convenient to both parties. Again appropriate feedback should be provided to the regulator.

Serious crimes like murder, rape, corruption, complaints against public servants should be heard initially itself by the lower courts and the appellate authority should be the high court. As usual feedback from both parties should be provided to the regulator.

The apex court should only take up interstate disputes and issues involving interpretation of the Constitution.

All orders, without exception, of high courts and the Supreme Court should be published in a centralised website which can be searched based on court, judge, petitioner, respondent, subject, law and section under which charged (example Sec 217 of the IPC), punishment awarded, compensation awarded to aggrieved party (could be the petitioner or the respondent who has been acquitted!). (I have highlighted without exception because right now it is the judge who decides whether an order has to be uploaded/published and there is obvious shortcoming in this process!)

Follow up data-like date and place of commencement of imprisonment, payment of cost/compensation etc- should also be updated against the same case, based on mandatory inputs to be provided by the authority implementing the order to the authority responsible for updating the data (should be under the same regulator compiling feedbacks and grading advocates, judges).

Cases involving public servants should be contested by the concerned public servant in his own capacity and at his own cost. Compensation/punishment should follow as for any ordinary litigant.

All quasi-judicial organisations should be discontinued.

A Contempt of Citizen (Prevention of ) Act should be enacted and even judges summoning litigants and adjourning without conducting any hearing effectively, should be under it purview.

While the foregoing suggestions would apply to long-term reforms, for the immediate future the following should be taken up on war footing:

No judge should list more than two times the cases s/he can effectively hear in a day. And these also should be divided into forenoon and afternoon sessions, necessitating litigants to spare time only in the forenoon or afternoon.

The list of cases taken up for the day should be displayed on a notice board and the serial number of the case in progress should be displayed on a counter or a TV screen.

No litigant should be required to appear in a case on more than three occasions in minor cases, six times in somewhat serious cases and 12 times in very serious cases.

An attendance slip should be provided to every litigant, who has been summoned and attended court, as proof of attendance.

Minor cases should be disposed of within 3 months and very serious cases within one year.

Contempt of court cases should be restricted to cases where those responsible for complying with the orders fail to do so.

In every case the ‘victim‘ (whether it is the complainant or the acquitted accused) should be compensated appropriately by the other party.

Public servants involved in cases even in their official capacity should be considered as ordinary litigants without the support of the official machinery and should initiate / contest cases on their own. While the punishment/compensation will also be suffered/ enjoyed by them as ordinary citizens, they can be given additional incentives by the government if there is some gain accrued to the public.

Hope this long letter will of help in appreciating the frustration and disgust of the public with the present justice delivery system. You, being in the driver‘s seat of the national bus and empowered to take it to its destination, are expected to do the needful. After the power of the vote it is now the power of our prayers that we hope will help you steer right to the correct destination!

“A debate has raged between supporters and opponents of the ban on Jallikattu, and as there are valid points on both sides, it is imperative to have a clear understanding of the issue and to plan the future course of action.” – B.R. Haran

Since then, a debate has raged between supporters and opponents of the ban, and as there are valid points on both sides, it is imperative to have a clear understanding of the issue and to plan the future course of action. The Bull Fight is a traditional sport as evidenced by Seals excavated at Mohenjo-daro and by scriptures such as Bhagvatam; over time the sport got restricted to certain parts of the country and moved from villages to towns and cities. It has become a “free for all” sport, no longer restricted to the traditional agriculturist community

The legal process

For over three decades, the South Indian Humanitarian League and Blue Cross of India petitioned the Petitions’ Committee of the TN state legislature to ban Jallikattu and other sports using bulls. In 2004, hearing a petition seeking permission for conducting Rekla Race, Justice F M Ibrahim Kalifulla permitted the “sport” with a rider that the organisers should cause no injury to the bulls. The petitioner had to approach the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court, as the Ramanathapuram Police had refused permission earlier.

In 2006, another petitioner approached the Madurai Bench for the same reason; another petition in the same court was filed by the father of a man who was killed during Jallikattu the previous year. Taking note of the purview of the PCA Act in its entirety, Justice R Banumathi issued an order banning all types of “sports” namely Jallikattu, Rekla race, and other such “sports” causing cruelty to animals.

When the petitioner seeking permission appealed against the single judge’s order, a division bench comprising Justices Elipe Dharma Rao and PPS Janarthana Raja heard the appeal on 9 March 2007 and set aside the single judge’s order. The bench allowed Jallikattu with conditions which applied to ‘Performing Animals’ under the PCA Act. These were –

Owners of bulls must register their animals with the Animal Welfare Board of India one month in advance;

Bulls must be certified by a vet as being healthy and fit to be allowed to participate in the events lasting several months across several districts of Tamil Nadu;

At every event bull tamers will be tested by doctors for alcohol consumption;

Bulls should not be given alcohol prior to the event;

Bulls must not be administered steroids and veterinary doctors stationed at the venue must ensure that bulls have not been abused by owners rubbing chilly powder, tobacco and mud in their eyes, tails and genitals;

All events must receive written permission from the local magistrate.

The State Government was made a respondent and the division bench stipulated monitoring of Jallikattu by the local magistrate, district collector, veterinary officers, AWBI volunteers and police; the High Court placed bulls on the list of ‘Performing Animals’ on its own. As the organisers and State Government were desperate to conduct the “sport” they readily agreed to the classification of bulls as performing animals and also to comply with the conditions posed by the High Court. It bears mention that the Tamil Nadu Regulation of Jallikattu Act (2009), which impacts upon the PCA Act (1960) which is a Central act, has not received Presidential assent yet.

The AWBI, a statutory body, disagreed with the classification of bull as ‘performing animal’ and took the case to the Supreme Court seeking an immediate stay on the order of the division bench and demanding a complete ban on Jallikattu. Thereafter, on July 27, 2007 the Supreme Court in an interim order stayed the order of the division bench of the Madras High Court.

However, on January 11, 2008 the Supreme Court pronounced its final order by banning Jallikattu but permitting Rekla race. The bench comprising Justices R V Raveendran and A K Patnaik permitted Rekla because the AWBI had, by lapse, sought banning of only Jallikattu. When the State Government filed a Revision Petition on 13 January 2008, the same bench heard it and delivered an interim order allowing Jallikattu to be held as part of Pongal celebrations, with some ‘conditions’. The AWBI promptly filed another Special Leave Petition seeking restoration of the earlier order dated 11 January 2008.

Even as the case was dragging in the apex court, the State Government tabled the Tamil Nadu Jallikattu Regulation Bill in the Assembly; it was unanimously passed as Tamil Nadu Jallikattu Regulation Act 2009. But the government failed to obtain Presidential assent. Thereafter, the same bench of the Supreme Court gave interim orders in 2010 and 2011 allowing Jallikattu with conditions and directing the authorities to ‘monitor’ the ‘sport’.

Meanwhile, Minister of State for Environment and Forests, Jairam Ramesh, in July 2011, included Bulls on the list of animals which may not be deemed to be Performing Animals and may therefore not be allowed to be trained, exhibited or used in sport. The ministry added that Bulls meant cows, progeny of cows, bulls, buffalo and oxen including castrated and not castrated ones.

Armed with the notification of MOE & F, AWBI and animal welfare activist Radha Rajan filed separate petitions in the Madurai Bench of the Madras High court seeking a ban on Jallikattu. On 12 January 2012 the Bench comprising Justices Chitra Venkataraman and R Karuppaiah heard the matter, but the government advocates managed to secure another day for the government to be heard again. As the State’s ruling party was also partner at the Center, the Union Government’s Advocate General somehow failed to defend the notification of the MOE & F. The State Government also succeeded in allowing the ‘sport’ to be conducted, as usual with ‘conditions’ (that were never followed) and ‘monitoring’ (that was never done with the seriousness it required).

Continuing its relentless efforts, the AWBI monitored and observed the conduct of Jallikattu in 2012 and 2013 and prepared solid documentation with photographs and videographs and submitted its report to the Supreme Court (supporters argue that such cruelties stopped after 2008). The AWBI meticulously detailed the entire process of Jallikattu, the cruelties to which the bulls are subjected and how Jallikattu was violative of various sections of the PCA Act. A petition was filed by PETA against the Tamil Nadu Jallikattu Regulation Act 2009.

The organisers of Jallikattu, confident of political support from the State Government and thinking that the TNJR Act would make it easy for them in the Supreme Court, failed to make a convincing case for conducting Jallikattu; they did not present any documentation or proof that there was no cruelty to the animals and proof that they were conducting Jallikattu safely.

The Supreme Court analysed the issue threadbare taking the PCA Act into consideration in its entirety. It found the TNJR Act repugnant to the PCA Act and noted that the TNJR Act had not received Presidential Assent under Article 254 of the Constitution of India. Accordingly, it banned Jallikattu, Rekla race and other such “sports” and struck down the TNJR Act 2009 as null and void.

Jallikattu – not sport but farce!

Following the judgment, the organisers and supporters of Jallikattu are disappointed and agitated. But the ban on the sport is of their making! As long as Jallikattu was conducted as a village sport by the agricultural community, with the involvement of youth from the particular village and under the supervision of village elders and leaders of the said village, it did not attract attention, good or bad. It had its own typical cultural flair and religious flavour; it was traditional in the true sense of the word.

But once the sport moved to towns and cities and suffered commercialization (prize money, betting, etc.), due to greed for money and fame by organisers and community leaders, it lost its uniqueness. Even the “brave” players taking part in taming the bulls are mostly from towns and cities, not rural areas. They are akin to the mad bike racers we see on city roads.

The cruelty inflicted upon the hapless animals is beyond expression. Cutting the ear, pulling, twisting and biting the tail, soiling the tail and hind legs with faeces, making them stand for hours, causing injuries by chasing them and hitting and poking them with sticks and knives, applying irritants into their eyes and noses, using tight and thick nose-ropes, keeping them in cramped conditions without sufficient food and water, forcing them to drink liquor and even spectators beating them are some of the cruelties detailed with photographic and videographic evidence in the AWBI report, four years after the proclamation of TNJR Act by Tamil Nadu government. [2]

The day Jallikattu moved from villages to towns and cities, far away from the temples, it lost its sanctity and traditional fervour and gained in commercial flavour in the process. The greed for money and fame increased and commitment to tradition decreased. The rural traditional sport became an urban and sub-urban commercial entertainment, showing scant regard for the well-being of animals and humans. We have come across deaths of scores of players and spectators over the years. Even during the so-called training period, the bulls are subjected to cruelties such as forcing it to thrash its head and horns repeatedly against the ground, tying it to two poles tightly immobilizing it, etc. [3]

The bulls were viewed and treated as objects or instruments of entertainment instead of living beings. This forced the AWBI and animal welfare activists to act against this farce and the rest is history.

Arguments for Jallikattu, a travesty!

In the name of tradition, it is not clear if the organisers included Indus Valley Seals, verses from Bhagvatam and other archaeological and literary evidences in their defense before the Supreme Court. The argument that twisting tails, cutting ears and using nose-ropes are not cruelties will not cut ice with the Court of law, which views the case under the PCA Act. The organisers had to defend their case under the purview of the PCA Act. They were not able to present a sound defence, because they violated conditions even in 2012 and 2013, four years after these were imposed by the Supreme Court.

It is argued by organisers and supporters of Jallikattu that the bulls are sent for slaughter due to the ban of the sport. They claim that the bull is reared with love and affection as a member of the family; taken care of by feeding highly nutritious food with special attention for its well-being; and that as much as Rs. 500/- per day is spent on the bull, all year round. When they can send their own family member to the slaughter-house just because Jallikattu is banned, is not the claim of taking care of the bull with love and affection farcical? Doesn’t this prove that they are for money only? Are they not spending so much because the Jallikattu bull’s market rate is over Rs one lakh?

They argue that Jallikattu helps them in protection, preservation and breeding of native cattle. If they really want to protect and preserve native breeds, why should they send the bulls for slaughter just because the sport is banned? Is Jallikattu the only option to breed native cattle? Can’t they use them for breeding, farming and producing biogas, organic manure and other dung-based products?

The day the agriculturist replaced bulls with tractors, he lost his credibility; exposed his avarice. The day he started compromising on the genuine tradition of Jallikattu and made it a commercial sport, inflicting pain on hapless animals, he lost his ground for arguments. It is a farce that the bulls are sold for slaughter only after the ban on Jallikattu. Selling male progeny has been happening for years! As he has started selling them for slaughter, he can no more claim that he is passionate about breeding them.

Blaming animal welfare activists

Jallikattu organisers and supporters alleged that animal welfare activists were paid by foreign NGOs backed by the Church. They must understand that there is nothing Christian about the AWBI or animal welfare activists, majority of whom are Hindu. Both have an impressive track record in the cause of animal welfare. When Churches are conducting Jallikattu, where is the question of these activists being paid by the Church? Even genuine Hindu activists, who have been serving the cause of animal welfare for decades, have been blamed for being associated with PETA and paid by Christian NGOs!

Jallikattu supporters question why animal welfare activists are not fighting against slaughter of cattle, cattle trafficking, circus, etc. This is an ill-informed argument. Animal welfare activists are fighting against all forms of cruelties perpetrated on animals.

First, with regards to Circus, the Ministry Environment and Forests issued a second notification dated 14-10-1998 (Annexure-1)4 under Section 22 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 putting restriction on exhibition or training of bears, monkeys, tigers, panthers and lions with effect from the date of publication of the notification. Since then, the number of Circus companies has been on the decline.

Second, regarding slaughter houses, the Supreme Court delivered an excellent order [4] on 23 August 2012 directing both the Central and State Governments to ensure that slaughter houses adhere to the guidelines prescribed by the Central Pollution Control Board, involving the Departments of Health, Animal Husbandry and Labour, State Police, Food Safety Commissioner, State Pollution Control Board, State Animal Welfare Board and two prominent persons nominated by the State Government.

Third, regarding Cattle Trafficking, animal welfare activists have worked diligently with limited resources. Ever since a team of committed activists led by Radha Rajan and S V Badri released a documentary “Their Last Journey – Cattle Trafficking to Kerala” [5], huge awareness has been created on the issue and many activists have formed their own teams across Tamil Nadu to serve the noble cause. In other States too, activists are working to stop cattle trafficking.

All animals are the same for animal welfare activists; they do not discriminate between Desi Cow and Jersey Cow, dog and cat, hen and peacock, but work for the protection and welfare of all. Working for animal welfare is not easy; it requires manpower, money power, material power, and above all, support from the State administration and Police. Waging a legal war must also be within the realms of Law and Constitution. Within their capacities and limitations, they are doing a great job.

Those who fought against Jallikattu are also fighting against circuses, against cattle trafficking, against cow slaughter, against the government’s religious endowment departments for the welfare of temple cows; they will also fight for the protection and breeding of native cattle!

The Christian play

Regarding churches conducting Jallikattu, it is claimed that churches have been conducting this sport in certain parts of Tamil Nadu on the eve of St. Antony’s Festival for centuries! [6] It is a great blunder that Hindus allowed the church to hijack this sport. During the current year when the Church organized Jallikattu in Dindigal, a 12-year-old boy was killed and 23 others injured! [7] The agricultural community should have protested against the churches and safeguarded the sanctity of this Hindu sport. Having allowed the church to conduct Jallikattu, can the argument that banning Jallikattu hurts Hindu religious sentiments stand scrutiny?

Even in the present circumstances, the Hindu agriculturists did not fight for the Hinduness of Jallikattu as they feared the Dravidian Government would not support them. The DMK regime supported Jallikattu and went to the extent of making a separate law for it, not in the interest of Hindu religion or Tamil culture, but because it brings money to its coffers and the Church is also involved. This was the regime that changed the traditional Tamil New Year, showing scant regard to Hindu religion and Tamil culture. The pathetic condition of cows and the gaushalas maintained by the HR & CE Department shows the scant regard the government has for religious tradition and sentiments of Hindus!

In a recently published Tamil article by Chennai-based Vedic Science Research Center, an author named Aegan [8] has explained in detail about the attempts being made by Christian priests to purchase native breeds of cattle from farmers in Erode, in order to use them to produce cross-breeds and curtail the growth of native breeds. The article cites evidence that these priests have been indulging in this nefarious activity with the active connivance of the officers of a nationalized bank. It is a very serious issue and the agricultural community must immediately bring it to the notice of the Government and take it up with the concerned banks’ authorities. They must ensure this practice does not spread to other parts of Tamil Nadu, like they allowed the church to hijack Jallikattu.

What has St. Antony got to do with Jallikattu? It is clearly an “Inculturation” technique. Hence, it is imperative that the Hindu agricultural community think of a strategy to take the rural sport back to the villages with religious and cultural flavour, as a Review Petition against the ban is most likely to be rejected.

Hindu perspective

It is very unfortunate that this issue has created a rift among Hindus. Supporters of the ban feel that the present day Jallikattu is a mockery of the village sport and more commercial and entertainment than tradition and culture. This is akin to the debate on vegetarianism and non-vegetarianism among Hindus. It is a fact that the Maharishis of Vedic times took some amount of ‘pashu’ as prasad after performing yagnas. But over the centuries, Vedic Brahmins have put an end to animal sacrifice in yagnas, barring very rare occasions like vajpeya yagnas. But none of the Hindu scriptures have strictly enforced vegetarianism for Hindus.

The same is the case with animal sacrifices during temple festivals, particularly the village temples, where the gramadevata is served naivedhya by sacrificing animals and birds. Here also we have two sections of Hindus, one for and one against the tradition of animal sacrifice. The point of contention is that the practice of eating non-vegetarian food has become almost a daily affair, unlike the days when it was only during festival occasions and family / community celebrations. Over the years, beef eating has also increased manifold among Hindus and has probably led people to view animals as mere products and not living beings.

Objectives and Plans

This Hindu nation has a time-tested tradition of worshipping Nature. Our livelihood was in consonance with nature. Natural resources are God’s gift to mankind. But as we started deviating from the tradition of worshipping nature and showing scant regard for nature, we started facing problems. As we modernised our agricultural practices, we failed to strike a balance, resulting in the destruction of our cattle wealth. Similarly, village oriented sports like Jallikattu have lost the traditional sanctity as they became commercialised for money and entertainment. The traditional practice of daily worshipping cattle has become a formal annual event, resulting in cattle being viewed as commodities. It is high time the depletion of cattle wealth stopped and steps taken to increase it.

The following objectives are in order:

To work towards bringing a ban on Cow Slaughter;

To stop Cattle Trafficking;

To improve breeding of native varieties of cattle;

To sustain traditional agricultural practices, organic farming, etc;

To take back the traditional sports to villages in a new form with truly religious flavor.

The prohibition of cow slaughter is a Directive Principles of State Policy contained in Article 48 of the Constitution: “The State shall endeavour to organize agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines and shall, in particular, take steps for preserving and improving the breeds, and prohibiting the slaughter of cows and calves and other milch and draught cattle”.

Yet successive governments have failed the nation on the issue of banning cattle slaughter. Successive governments have also failed to check and control the mushrooming of hundreds of thousands of illegal slaughter houses, leading to a progression of meat industry resulting in India becoming the world’s highest exporter of beef, a shameful distinction!

For a Dharmic nation that worships Cow and its progeny, leading the world in exporting their meat is not only shameful but sinful. The present ruling party at the Centre stated in its election manifesto that it would reverse the so-called Pink Revolution by coming down heavily on slaughter and trafficking of cattle.

Right thinking citizens should support Hindu organizations, which must work together for this noble cause by coordinating with the Union Government to ban cow slaughter and export of beef. In accordance with the Directive Principles, the menace of cattle trafficking must also end. For this, we need more Gaushalas.

Gaushalas can be set up in every major town and city along with a bio-gas plant in every gaushala; they could be placed under the supervision of temples, possibly on land owned by temples. Centers can be set up in each district to manufacture organic manure, cosmetics and other Ayurvedic products using cattle dung and urine procured from the gaushalas.

District-wise Cattle Protection Teams could be formed and connected through a network to stop cattle trafficking and keep a watch on temple gaushalas. Support from authorities like State Police, SPCA and AWBI must be sought to stop cattle trafficking so that the Transportation of Animals Rules are thoroughly implemented.

Special care must be taken to preserve the native breeds and increase their breeding by supporting farmers who preserve native breeds. Animal husbandry departments must make regular supply of cattle feed at subsidised rates for these farmers and gaushalas.

As organic farming spreads with general awareness of the ill-effects of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, organic manure will find a ready market, leading to a return to traditional organic farming methods. Strategic marketing of cosmetics and Ayurvedic products from cow produce will help in the sustenance of native cattle breeds, traditional agriculture and organic farming.

Given our glorious tradition of worshipping cattle, we may adopt new forms to celebrate religious occasions with our cattle wealth. Occasions like Krishna Jayanti and Nandi Jayanti could be celebrated in every village by bringing cows and bulls to the temples, akin to the Arattupuzha Pooram Festival (Thrissur) where elephants are lined up. The people can perform Gau-Puja and Rishab-Puja and individual farmers can be awarded for breeding native cows and bulls during the occasion. Every Shiva temple can have a procession of deities placed on Vrishaba Vahanam during utsavams. Reclaiming the divinity of cattle can check the Church which has already hijacked the Jallikattu, which is no more thanks to the Supreme Court.

We must remember that it is we who made non-vegetarian diet more frequent than vegetarian diet; we who opted for tractors in place of bulls for farming; we who promoted a small time village Jallikattu as big time entertainment; we who brought Jallikattu from villages to towns and cities and inflicted barbaric cruelties on bulls in the name of demonstrating our valour; we who promoted chemical fertilisers and disowned organic manure; we who forgot the sanctity attached to agricultural festivals; we who promoted trafficking of cattle, slaughter of cattle and export of beef. Let us correct ourselves and serve the noble cause of preserving our cattle wealth!

The bench struck down a notification by the Tamil Nadu government in this regard and said the central law that prohibited use of the animals shall prevail.

It also nixed a proposal by the central government to allow use of bulls by amending the list of animals prohibited from being trained for performances.

The Centre’s affidavit in the SC had stated: “In order to strike a balance and to safeguard the interest of all stakeholders including the animals, while keeping in mind the historic, cultural and religious significance of the event and with a view to ensure that no unnecessary pain or suffering is caused to the animals, participants and spectators, the government of India proposes to exempt ‘bulls’ participating in ‘Jallikattu’ in the state of Tamil Nadu from the purview of the 2011 notification.” This stand however failed to find favour with the court.

The animal welfare activists are up in arms against Jallikattu for the past several years. They want the age-old sport to be banned for what they call it as massive cruelties to animals.

After a single judge of the Madras High Court had banned the sport few years ago, the issue was taken to the Supreme Court, where a batch of petitions are now pending for final disposal.

The SC had also once noted that Jallikattu was nothing but a sport inflicting massive cruelty to animals but allowed it under stringent conditions on vehement request by the Tamil Nadu government. – The Indian Express, 8 May 2014

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